TSA Removes X-Ray Body Scanners From Major Airports

The Transportation Security Administration has been removing its X-ray body scanners from LAX, O’Hare and JFK, and putting them in less-busy airports. The X-ray machines have faced criticism over radiation and privacy.

The Transportation Security Administration has been removing its X-ray body scanners from LAX, O'Hare and JFK, and putting them in less-busy airports. (Michael Nagle/Getty Images)

The Transportation Security Administration has been quietly removing its X-ray body scanners from major airports over the last few weeks and replacing them with machines that radiation experts believe are safer.

The TSA says it made the decision not because of safety concerns but to speed up checkpoints at busier airports. It means, though, that far fewer passengers will be exposed to radiation because the X-ray scanners are being moved to smaller airports.

The backscatters, as the X-ray scanners are known, were swapped out at Boston Logan International Airport in early October. Similar replacements have occurred at Los Angeles International Airport, Chicago O'Hare, Orlando and John F. Kennedy in New York, the TSA confirmed Thursday.

The X-ray scanners have faced a barrage of criticism since the TSA began rolling them out nationwide after the failed underwear bombing on Christmas Day 2009. One reason is that they emit a small dose of ionizing radiation, which at higher levels has been linked to cancer.

In addition, privacy advocates decried that the machines produce images, albeit heavily blurred, of passengers' naked bodies. Each image must be reviewed by a TSA officer, slowing security lines.

The replacement machines, known as millimeter-wave scanners, rely on low-energy radio waves similar to those used in cell phones. The machines detect potential threats automatically and quickly using a computer program. They display a generic cartoon image of a person's body, mitigating privacy concerns.

"They're not all being replaced," TSA spokesman David Castelveter said. "It's being done strategically. We are replacing some of the older equipment and taking them to smaller airports. That will be done over a period of time."

He said the TSA decided to move the X-ray machines to less-busy airports after conducting an analysis of processing time and staffing requirements at the airports where the scanners are installed.

The radiation risk and privacy concerns had no bearing on the decision, Castelveter said.

Asked about the changes, John Terrill, a spokesman for Rapiscan — which makes the X-ray scanners — wrote in an email, "No comment on this."

The TSA is not phasing out X-ray body scanners altogether. The backscatter machines are still used for screening at a few of America's largest 25 airports, but the TSA has not confirmed which ones. Last week, Gateway Airport in Mesa, Ariz., installed two of the machines.

The United States remains one of the only countries in the world to X-ray passengers for airport screening. The European Union prohibited the backscatters last year "in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens' health and safety," according to a statement at the time. The last scanners were removed from Manchester Airport in the United Kingdom last month.

The X-ray scanner looks like two blue refrigerator-sized boxes. Unseen to the passenger, a thin beam scans left and right and up and down. The rays reflect back to the scanner, creating an image of the passenger's body and any objects hidden under his or her clothes.

The millimeter-wave scanner looks like a round glass booth. Two rotating antennas circle the passenger, emitting radio frequency waves. Instead of creating a picture of the passenger's body, a computer algorithm looks for anomalies and depicts them as yellow boxes on a cartoon image of the body.

According to many studies, including a new one conducted by the European Union, the radiation dose from the X-ray scanner is extremely small. It has been repeatedly measured to be less than the dose received from cosmic radiation during two minutes of the airplane flight.

Using those measurements, radiation experts have studied the cancer risk, with estimates ranging from six to 100 additional cancer cases among the 100 million people who fly every year. Many scientists say that is trivial, considering that those same 100 million people would develop 40 million cancers over the course of their lifetimes. And others, including the researchers who did the EU study, have said that so much is unknown about low levels of radiation that such estimates shouldn't be made.

Still, the potential risks have led some prominent scientists to argue that the TSA is unnecessarily endangering the public because it has an alternative — the millimeter-wave machine — which it also deems highly effective at finding explosives.

"Why would we want to put ourselves in this uncertain situation where potentially we're going to have some cancer cases?" David Brenner, director of Columbia University's Center for Radiological Research, told ProPublica last year. "It makes me think, really, why don't we use millimeter waves when we don't have so much uncertainty?"

Although there has been some doubt about the long-term safety of the type of radio frequency waves used in the millimeter-wave machines, scientists say that, in contrast to X-rays, such waves have no known mechanism to damage DNA and cause cancer.

The TSA has said that having both technologies encourages competition, leading to better detection capabilities at a lower cost.

But tests in Europe and Australia suggest the millimeter-wave machines have some drawbacks. They were found to have a high false-alarm rate, ranging from 23 percent to 54 percent when figures have been released. Even common things such as folds in clothing and sweat have triggered the alarm.

In contrast, Manchester Airport officials told ProPublica that the false-alarm rate for the backscatter was less than 5 percent.

No study comparing the two machines' effectiveness has been released. The TSA says its own results are classified.

Each week, the agency reports on various knives, powdered drugs and even an explosives detonator used for training that have been found by the body scanners.

But Department of Homeland Security investigators reported last year that they had "identified vulnerabilities" with both types of machines. And House transportation committee chairman John Mica, R-Fla., who has seen the results, has called the scanners "badly flawed."

73 comments

I could care less about the type of radiation used in these scanners (although everyone in the medical field that I’ve talked to agrees that the radiation levels are dangerous). TSA procedures are a violation of our Fourth Amendment right to be “secure in [our] persons from unreasonable search….” Unless TSA has a reason to think I’m up to something, they have no right to search me. Period. End of story. The government needs to come up with some other way of handling security. I’m not holding my breath; finding another way would involve some creative thinking, which our so-called leadership seems to be incapable of doing.

“The United States remains one of the only countries in the world to X-ray passengers for airport screening.” All I needed to read to know it’s wrong. We (USA) used to laugh at places like Russia who did this type of thing to it’s citizens.

Airlines and airports are NOT the government. The agreement to fly is being made between private citizens and corporations. The TSA is working for those corporations to standardize the security procedures. Those corporations get to set the terms if you want to use their product. Yes it is invasive and inconvenient as bombers and hijackers compete with detectors in the evolving arms race. But what is your alternative? Slow the line and open everyone’s bags and feel everyone up like Israel? Let’s hear your ideas to make flying safe from mass murderers acting on their political and religious views.

Seriously, did you think nobody has ever given this thought or that the only possible way was a warrantless search and seizure of every American who has relatives more than two hours’ drive away?

If you can’t hijack a vehicle, if you can’t turn it into a weapon, especially, it’s no longer a target. That’s why, for all the fear-mongering in Congress, nobody has hijacked a train in this country: it’s on tracks. You can kill the people on-board, but that’s not terror.

Want to go further, because you somehow still believe that a terrorist wants to suicide bomb an airline for fun despite no historical basis? Put explosive “sniffers” at every entrance and lock down that entrance if it finds anything to search the people in range.

And that goes for all entrances, rather than assuming that the pilots, mechanics, and TSA agents are clean by some definition.

Also, the TSA is a government agency, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security. That they work in airports is irrelevant. They are not private individuals, hence they are subject to the interpreted restrictions set by the Constitution. Jane and Adam are 100% correct. “But we’re afraid of Muslims” isn’t an exception.

We’ve brought back the Cold War and put ourselves on the losing side, even to the extent of burying ourselves in Afghanistan.

1) The primary reason used by the TSA to justify illegal inch-by-inch searches of our bodies, with and without nude images, is to supposedly detect working non-metallic bombs carried by suicidal airline passengers.

In the US, there have been no fatalities from this vulnerability for 50 years. Let me repeat - 50 years.

2) Congressional research from Sept 20, 2012 showed the TSA does NOT plan to deploy scanners in 100% of security lines. Therefore, that defeats the purpose.

No one can argue that had we not deployed metal detectors at 100% in the early 1970s, then that would have still been sufficient to stop the hijackings with guns.

On that note, the scanners have NOT improved security by detecting any working non-explosive bombs as compared to before their use. Of course, a main reason is that there were 0 working non-metallic bombs on US flights for decades.

Even after our intelligence services had the failed underwear bomber issued a visa (over the State Dept objections), there was a 10 to 11 month period over which nothing happened.

3) In short, the risk of working non-metallic bombs carried by suicidal airline passengers is almost unmeasurable. Throwing away the 4th amendment by using suspicionless inch-by-inch searches of our bodies, as opposed to metal detectors which DO NOT specifically search your body and ACTUALLY detect something (metal), using scanners which don’t even look for explosives is an affront to our liberties.

Even a 5% false positive rate applied to 40% of 675 million passengers, leads to 13.5 Million secondary searches a year….and this will humiliate those with medical issues…such as the Breast Cancer victims who are fondled on their breast areas. Way to go, America.

If we allow primary screening by scanners, then we are allowing a dead, rotting corpse at the bottom of the ocean to WIN.

“The TSA is not phasing out X-ray body scanners altogether. The backscatter machines are still used for screening at a few of America’s largest 25 airports, but the TSA has not confirmed which ones. Last week, Gateway Airport in Mesa, Ariz., installed two of the machines.”

I’m willing to bet these machines have been removed from airports where the most noise has been made, i.e., Boston, and installed in small airports where the TSA is hoping the noise can be contained.

I don’t see how anyone can say they see the cancer risk is small , especially if you are the one who gets it. Then it’s huge. BTW, xrays/CTs do cause doublestrand DNA breaks in 67% within 1 mS.
Low ionizing radiation is just as deadly, so be sure you want those “yearly” dental xrays or that “annual” chest xray and make sure it’s justified. You don’t need them. Radiation accumulates.

So they pull them out of busy airports and relocate them to smaller airports? You go through the airport in Tulsa, OK (medium size, 27 gates) and everyone has to go through the millimeter wave scanner. Go through Boston Logan and there’s a greater than 50% chance that you get away with just the metal detector in the interest of keeping the line moving. How is that an effective risk management protocol? Is the likelihood of someone carrying a nonmetallic threat through in Tulsa really higher than it is at LAX or Logan? Or are the metal detectors plus careful observation sufficient, and the extra radiation just security theatre?

@Janet, you cannot compare xray/CT scans to the Rapiscan body scanners used in the airports. when you get a diagnostic Xray scan or a CT we are talking about 100-150 kV. Meaning that the maximum energy of the photons hititng the patient are in this range => more penentration and subsequent absorption in deeper parts of the body where radiosensitive organs lie.

The airport scanners operate at 50kV which barely penetrates dermis layer. Yes there is an increase in the risk of cancer but you have to weight the risks and benefits. The effective dose received from one scan at the airport is equivalent to 1.8 minuts of background dose received by an average individual in the US and is ~ equal to 12 seconds on cosmic radiation dose during the flight.

Andrew, the airport scanners concentrate the photons like a laser beam and can freeze the beam in one spot too long. That is what makes them much more carcinogenic that regular xray/CT scans or background cosmic radiation.

But you probably knew that, since you parroted the discredited industry propaganda virtually word for word.

Kevin, actually Im an engineer and do monte carlo simulations of real life imaging systems so no im not using discredited industry propaganda but thanks for the smart ass remark. Those numbers were not my work but are accurate. If you can find them in some discredited industry propaganda please let me know I would like to see that

I am aware these scanners take a raster scanning approach to imaging the body. If the beam gets stopped the operator will know instantly since no image will be displayed. Think about what happens when you go into these machines. You put your hands above your head stand there for 3 seconds then walk away. You dont sit in front of the scanner until the TSA worker tells you to put your hands down and walk away so even if the beam stopped at a certain location for a period of time you would not be irradiated for much longer than a few seconds and the chances that the beam location is in a highly radiosensitive area is very slim.

@Andrew - honest question here: due to the lack of penetration, it would seem to me like if there were a concern about cancer from the backscatter machines (and I tend to think there is, but could be convinced otherwise), it would be limited exclusively to skin cancer. Right?

@ John - you are entirely right to both the comment you made to Kevin and the question you asked me. Although many stipulate that RF waves cause cancer this has not at all been scientifically proven

Since xrays undergo exponential attenuation (different then charged particles) nearly all the dose is in the skin. That being said, skin cancer is much easier to remove than say lung cancer. You simply remove them (as long as it has not spread). One of the real problems lies in the fact that we still dont truly know the effects of radiation on organs and tissues in the body. All of what we know is based upon victims of the bombing in Japan during WWII as well as other incidents. These levels of radiation are incredibly high compared with what we are talking about in airport scanners. We simply extrapolated the curve (Linear No Threshold Model) and then give risk factors which some say have orders of magnitude uncertainty in their values

well duh , high traffic then this slow line for body scanners , people are not getting to where the heck their going , then that delays flight times , arrival times and the airports lose money because the pilots are sitting on the plane waiting .

@Joe - if you simply watch the video you will see that a zillion dollars is far overkill. They cost roughly 200K.

Im not what you are asking here, they can see through pants, (not sure what u-trow is), shirts and jackets. If your asking why they make us take off our jackets when we walk through then my answer would be that it is easy to do so and will make it far easier for the operator to screen the passenger.

I feel the real problem here is that the computer does not make the decision of whether or not the screen is true negative, a human does. Image recognition technology could easily do this and that would increase the throughput as well as help surpress people’s uncomfort in having a “naked” image of themselves seen by a TSA worker.

Step 5) Place signs EVERYWHERE stating the following: any act of aggression, of any kind, for any reason, will get you shot in the head. If you attempt to take over the plane, the plane will be shot down automatically by the highly weaponized and unmanned predator drone following you. Thank you for flying with us.

While I share the concerns of many noted here over privacy and the ridiculousness of airport “security”, I cannot help thinking one’s arguments are irreparably harmed by the suggestion of armed guards on flights. It is utterly ridiculous to purport we would all be safer if a “trained marksman” would shoot aggressors—ammunition passes through the human body, do you want to be in a plane which has a hull breach at 30,000 ft? Same goes for locking the cockpit, a wonderful idea, but the rest of the plane is vulnerable to whatever is carried onboard.

Tyler Wick wants a fascist state. It looks like at the rate we’re going, he’ll get his wish.

Two things and only two things have made a difference since 9/11, neither of them involving TSA theater: the cockpit doors are locked/reinforced; and passengers will no longer silently submit (which is more than I can say for TSA apologists like Andrew).

But Americans like their fantasy of 100% Security Everywhere All The Time. That doesn’t square with the fact that they still drive, despite the 35,000+ traffic fatalities in this country every year (how many 9/11s is that?).

They also like their fear. “The terrorists are everywhere!” Even though that doesn’t square with the fact that in all the years before the Reign of Molestation, planes weren’t being blown out of the sky left and right.

Or the fact that you’re more likely to drown in your bathtub, to choke to death on a sandwich, to be struck by lightning, than to be killed in a terrorist attack in this country.

But facts don’t matter.

Some people just won’t be happy until Uncle Sam is sticking his finger up their a*ses.

These machines went in under BushCo, get ready to see them triple with a radioactive prod up your anus under Romney. It’s about the dollar bills y’all. Gov contracts to croneys. The MIC that Eisenhower warned us about is in bed with one party, waaaay more than the other. Everything that’s bad will ramped up, only way to keep out of the fray and the crap on the ground (meaning wars, pollution, privacy intrusions, etc) will to be part of the 1% and have your own private jet, everyone else is screwed.

Cell phone radiation affects the blood brain barrier allowing albumin to enter the vrain tissue causing damage - Leif G. Salford cell phone study. Don’t worry about the cancer, worry about getting stupid and slow. If you haven’t noticed people getting stupid and slow, you ARE part of the problem.

Cell phones are the best way to deal with and control a slave population - track everyone they talk to, everywhere they go, what their interests are and what they buy, all while making them pay money to get stupid and slow so they can be more easily conned into voting for people like Obama and Romney.

Come on. You have to be brain damaged to think either one of them is presidential material.

Really.

Search on Swedish Cell Phone Study rat braiins and see what two hours of cell phone does to a rat’s brain.

The worst part is that the lower levels of radiation cause more damage. So the person on the phone is getting less harm than someone a meter away from them.

@Truth hey you are on the right track man but you are wrong about you’re “one party being worse than the other.” Its designed too apear that way their both puppet orginizatons with their strings being pulled by the same orginizaton, amazingly rich people that most of which you nor I know their names but here’s a few Rockafeller, Rothschild and my personal favorit the Gates family. those familys and a few more run most of the world either directly or indirectly through finacal or trade means. They do not recognize national borders only One World Order just like so many tyrants before their time could only dream and hope to acomplish they have done so almost compleatly using only financial tactics minus a few presidential assasinations, Any president who has ever been assasinated or had an attempted assasination was against the banks check it out. There really is no choice, but it keeps the sheeple happy and asleep.

Given that health care costs are out of control, why can’t we combine airport screening with a health exam? Go through the machine and if any issues are spotted, you are given a note that you should see a doctor for further tests. I’m kidding. Sort of.

TSA says they’re moving them to speed things up, yet they admit the false rate of the MMW ones is higher, which would slow things down. They need to tell the truth would be a good start.
Have never been thru a backscatter, and never will, opt-out everytime.

There are several ways to travel in this country. I fly 4-5 times / week and yes, I don’t like to wait in line. But I have chosen this form of travel and therefore I play by their rules. You don’t want to be screened, drive or take a train. Those of us that fly often would rather know we are going to make it to our destination safely. Those that want to kill us, just for being an American, are waiting for us to let our guard down. So until this government gets serious about wiping out these lunatics, I will put up with screenings.

9/11 was an inside job. The fact that there haven’t been any “terrorist” attacks since isn’t proof that the TSA measures are deterring illegal activity, it’s proving that the elite don’t need another “precursor” to anything else yet. They already have NDAA 2012, Patriot Act, Gitmo and the list goes on. When they want to force RFID chips into your system, they’ll kidnap a president or something, find them dead and a week later some cronie will say “this could have been prevented if everyone had RFID chips”, then VOILA.

Haven’t you seen V For Vendetta? The State attacks itself, blames it on its enemies and then curfew and nationalism and “war on the enemy” becomes a domestic battle. Google FEMA camps. DHS ammunition purchases. What do you think everyone but you is getting prepared for?

Good thing I got a bunker up north. See you when the bombs start falling. Survive well, patriots.

No. How quickly some people forget they have rights and are willing to trash them. How quickly they succumb to irrational fear. How quickly they like to play the victim. How quickly they turn hysterical, paranoid, and pathetic. How quickly they’re willing to do anything an authority figure tells them to do, no matter how ineffective or abusive that thing might be. How quickly they’re willing to live in a fantasy world where Terrorists Are Hiding Around Every Corner, Oh My!

If you care so little for your rights (not to mention bodily integrity) that you’re willing to sh*t on them, that’s your business. But you don’t have the right to sh*t on the rights of the rest of us.

While the TSA has a difficult job to do - they do a very bad job of it. Their people are rude offensive and racially motivated. They lazy and incompetent. They are themselves thieves. The number of items I have lost is too many to list.

They are the poster child for what is wrong with every government agency.

If we gave the work to McDonalds are 30 cents a passenger the lines would move quickly and I bet you no contraband items would pass the checkpoints.

The TSA and DHS refuse to arrest any of the actual 9-11 perpetrators who walk freely among us, pondering their next move. The cumbersome X-ray machines are being moved out so the TSA agents have more room to practice their craft. Sodomy.

The government and major corporations have used “shock” as a weapon to divide and conquer the masses and exert control. Yes, there is a Constitution but now it is only on paper and not adhered to anymore. Welcome to the brave new world order run by what many have called the Illuminati led by a so-called “rain man” leadership head.

There are counter forces building up to defeat this movement, and we already know it is defeated (by hosts of angels like me). Faith, truth and love will prevail!

Government is a giant scheme to ‘play’ its marks, the American people. Hey, someone gets cancer? Great, more business for the sickness industry, and gee, you get to go bankrupt too. Set up a false flag op and begin a war? Great, more business for weapons manufacturers. Abolish our rights and freedoms? Great, more business for the lawyer lobby to fight these things in courts for decades while govcorp gets to do as it pleases. Set up Al Qaeda, as the CIA did, then act like you are after them, when in other wars you work with them? Great, confuse everyone, and get them to abandon their freedoms and rights because they cannot trust anyone anymore.

I think Americans not only have some screws loose, I think most of the screws are MISSING.

In an effort to detect explosives hidden under clothing, is the TSA jeopardizing passenger safety?

The Story So Far

The Transportation Security Administration is planning to roll out body scanners at nearly every airport security lane in the country by 2014. Right now, it has deployed more than 500, split about evenly between two technologies—one using X-rays and another using radio frequency waves.

Several prominent radiation safety experts have raised concerns about exposing millions of airline passengers to X-rays.

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